... to my roommate. Apparently I stole ("borrowed," I like to say) Kay's soul today. I spent the morning cleaning the chapel. Then I came home around 1, and since I had momentum and it was my weekend, I cleaned the bathroom. Only first, I thought I'd clean the pile of dishes I had, before I cleaned the sinks. And then, I realized the fishbowl needed cleaning, so I figured I should definitely do that before I cleaned the sinks, so I did. And since I was in a cleaning mode, I did the floors in the common room. And then Jenny Jo got really excited at the idea that I might finally wash the exploded champagne off the coffee table, so I did that, and while I was at it, I washed the doily that lives on the coffee table. And then I realized that the bathroom sinks were really clean, so I did some hand wash. And then I took a shower myself. And I came into the common room and found a piece of dust on the floor that I'd just cleaned, and, sadly, took it across the hall to Jenny Jo, jumped up and down, and said "I JUST CLEANED THAT!!"
Thankfully, then it was time to go get dinner and watch basketball.
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Showing posts with label cleaning. Show all posts
Saturday, March 31, 2007
Monday, March 19, 2007
Hmm.
It's probably not in my long-term best interests that I can have no idea where my checkbook is and then find it almost immediately on my desk. Probably I ought just to clean the desk and do the actual filing. And yet, finding it so immediately doesn't really motivate me to do the cleaning and filing....
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Sunday afternoon
I'm pretty sure I live in the only suite anywhere where the conversation about the purpose of the cleaning rota goes like this:
Beth: Kay, did you clean the bathroom this weekend?
Kay: Well...
Jenny Jo: Kay?
Kay: I only cleaned part of it.
Beth: Kay! It's not your weekend!
Jenny Jo: That defeats the purpose of the rota!
Kay: But I had a few minutes on Friday, and I had these new Mr Clean erasers I wanted to use.
(Beth and Jenny Jo exchange looks.)
Beth: Kay, did you clean the bathroom this weekend?
Kay: Well...
Jenny Jo: Kay?
Kay: I only cleaned part of it.
Beth: Kay! It's not your weekend!
Jenny Jo: That defeats the purpose of the rota!
Kay: But I had a few minutes on Friday, and I had these new Mr Clean erasers I wanted to use.
(Beth and Jenny Jo exchange looks.)
Sunday, November 05, 2006
Interruptions
Between yesterday's retreat and today's train ride to church, I've been reading Henri Nouwen's Out of Solitude. In the third meditation, he tells the story of an old Notre Dame professor who said, "I have always been complaining that my work was constantly interrupted, until I slowly discovered that my interruptions were my work."
I'm often pretty good at remembering this, especially since I'm in a field that's sort of composed of interruptions, but since I'd already given the last two days to other things (retreat, dinner with friends, sleeping enough), I'd really been counting on getting a fair amount of school work done today. That hasn't happened - in fact I've accomplished nothing that's directly related to a class (though I have managed a little Greek). In a lot of ways, this has been a weekend of interruptions. But Nouwen is fresh in my mind, so I'm choosing to reframe this weekend. Instead of complaining that I've gotten nothing done, here's what I have accomplished today:
~I made it to church, something that wasn't a foregone conclusion when I went to bed last night. While there, I filled in as torchbearer/server for the first time. I'd rehearsed the process a couple of weeks ago, but this isn't your standard torchbearing routine, so I wasn't totally on top of things - still, I made only one mistake, thanks to a very helpful and experienced lead torchbearer/server. Doing this for real for the first time also reminded me how often we take things for granted once we've done them for a while, and how teaching and training need not to assume that kind of basic knowledge right off the bat. Two years at Seabury has taught me a lot, but my instincts are still pretty much formed by a low church childhood and a background in stage managing dance - both pretty forgiving environments.
~I finished the last bit of Out of Solitude on the way home from church.
~I had four good phone conversations. One was general catching up with an out-of-town friend who's visiting soon. One was with another out-of-town friend whose grandmother isn't doing so well, so that one was less joyful, but I'm always grateful when my friends feel free to call on me for help of any sort. One was with my father, who gave me a chance to be proud of him and my mother. They'll be putting up my friend this week while he visits his grandmother, and I'm proud of how natural that kind of hospitality has become for my parents. Maybe it was always that natural, but I don't remember growing up that way, and it's always exciting to me to hear my parents view their house as something to be shared. The last call was from a friend who's just out of town for a little while, but whom I've missed seeing and hearing from over the last week. It was great to laugh with him some, and to remember how soon all of the Plunge groups will be back. I can't wait - this year's Plungers are a very cool bunch.
~My bathroom is cleaner now than it's been in a while. I don't like cleaning it at all, but there's always a sense of satisfaction in having such a clean bathroom. My sink especially had just not looked quite clean enough lately, and it's nice to see it scrubbed down again.
~I took time to eat when I was hungry, despite the fact that there were other things to be done, and I ate simple, decent food. I sometimes let myself pretend that other things are more important than taking care of such mundane bodily demands as food, and I recognize that that's not my healthiest tendency. Today I paid attention.
In light of those kinds of interruptions, I'm more willing to say that I made the most the time I had this weekend. No, my history and Hebrew aren't done, and I haven't made any progress on my end-of-term projects, but looking at my list I don't see anything that's not important. Sometimes there are more things that qualify as important than there is time for them. The work always gets done, in the end, at least here in the stained glass penthouse, but I don't always manage time for these others. I'll get back to the work now, but with a sense of gratitude and not resentment for the fullness of the weekend.
I'm often pretty good at remembering this, especially since I'm in a field that's sort of composed of interruptions, but since I'd already given the last two days to other things (retreat, dinner with friends, sleeping enough), I'd really been counting on getting a fair amount of school work done today. That hasn't happened - in fact I've accomplished nothing that's directly related to a class (though I have managed a little Greek). In a lot of ways, this has been a weekend of interruptions. But Nouwen is fresh in my mind, so I'm choosing to reframe this weekend. Instead of complaining that I've gotten nothing done, here's what I have accomplished today:
~I made it to church, something that wasn't a foregone conclusion when I went to bed last night. While there, I filled in as torchbearer/server for the first time. I'd rehearsed the process a couple of weeks ago, but this isn't your standard torchbearing routine, so I wasn't totally on top of things - still, I made only one mistake, thanks to a very helpful and experienced lead torchbearer/server. Doing this for real for the first time also reminded me how often we take things for granted once we've done them for a while, and how teaching and training need not to assume that kind of basic knowledge right off the bat. Two years at Seabury has taught me a lot, but my instincts are still pretty much formed by a low church childhood and a background in stage managing dance - both pretty forgiving environments.
~I finished the last bit of Out of Solitude on the way home from church.
~I had four good phone conversations. One was general catching up with an out-of-town friend who's visiting soon. One was with another out-of-town friend whose grandmother isn't doing so well, so that one was less joyful, but I'm always grateful when my friends feel free to call on me for help of any sort. One was with my father, who gave me a chance to be proud of him and my mother. They'll be putting up my friend this week while he visits his grandmother, and I'm proud of how natural that kind of hospitality has become for my parents. Maybe it was always that natural, but I don't remember growing up that way, and it's always exciting to me to hear my parents view their house as something to be shared. The last call was from a friend who's just out of town for a little while, but whom I've missed seeing and hearing from over the last week. It was great to laugh with him some, and to remember how soon all of the Plunge groups will be back. I can't wait - this year's Plungers are a very cool bunch.
~My bathroom is cleaner now than it's been in a while. I don't like cleaning it at all, but there's always a sense of satisfaction in having such a clean bathroom. My sink especially had just not looked quite clean enough lately, and it's nice to see it scrubbed down again.
~I took time to eat when I was hungry, despite the fact that there were other things to be done, and I ate simple, decent food. I sometimes let myself pretend that other things are more important than taking care of such mundane bodily demands as food, and I recognize that that's not my healthiest tendency. Today I paid attention.
In light of those kinds of interruptions, I'm more willing to say that I made the most the time I had this weekend. No, my history and Hebrew aren't done, and I haven't made any progress on my end-of-term projects, but looking at my list I don't see anything that's not important. Sometimes there are more things that qualify as important than there is time for them. The work always gets done, in the end, at least here in the stained glass penthouse, but I don't always manage time for these others. I'll get back to the work now, but with a sense of gratitude and not resentment for the fullness of the weekend.
Wednesday, September 06, 2006
In more mundane news...
(Ok, the last post was pretty mundane too. Whatever.)
I have spent two days unpacking, cleaning, etc. My space is now not only livable but ready for guests. This is lucky, since I have one coming for at least the day and possibly the night tomorrow, and she tends more toward the neat side than I do. There are still a few things scattered about - I haven't yet taken my vestments to be laundered, for instance, so they're over the back of the futon. But it looks like a place someone lives, rather than a place someone stores things. Also, the floors are clean. That's more of a rare treat for me than it ought to be, but there you are.
In the midst of all this, I have also managed to have two meals with friends, do a bit of cooking, eat healthy raw foods (like the yummy salad I had for first lunch today), watch two movies and ten episodes of West Wing, and do my Hebrew homework. The Hebrew homework is a strange sort of challenge, in that the assignment itself isn't tough - we're to greet each other and at least two professors in Hebrew between classe sessions, as well as practicing a particular setting of the Hamotzi. The tough thing is that I and the other Seabury students aren't actually in class yet except for Hebrew - so I barely see him, and have not seen professors at all. My solution? I have been greeting my computer in Hebrew when talking with a professor online. (We're also not supposed to write any form of Hebrew yet.)
So, by special request for those of you who complained that reading my blog didn't tell you what I did all summer, that's what I've done the last two days.
I have spent two days unpacking, cleaning, etc. My space is now not only livable but ready for guests. This is lucky, since I have one coming for at least the day and possibly the night tomorrow, and she tends more toward the neat side than I do. There are still a few things scattered about - I haven't yet taken my vestments to be laundered, for instance, so they're over the back of the futon. But it looks like a place someone lives, rather than a place someone stores things. Also, the floors are clean. That's more of a rare treat for me than it ought to be, but there you are.
In the midst of all this, I have also managed to have two meals with friends, do a bit of cooking, eat healthy raw foods (like the yummy salad I had for first lunch today), watch two movies and ten episodes of West Wing, and do my Hebrew homework. The Hebrew homework is a strange sort of challenge, in that the assignment itself isn't tough - we're to greet each other and at least two professors in Hebrew between classe sessions, as well as practicing a particular setting of the Hamotzi. The tough thing is that I and the other Seabury students aren't actually in class yet except for Hebrew - so I barely see him, and have not seen professors at all. My solution? I have been greeting my computer in Hebrew when talking with a professor online. (We're also not supposed to write any form of Hebrew yet.)
So, by special request for those of you who complained that reading my blog didn't tell you what I did all summer, that's what I've done the last two days.
Wednesday, June 07, 2006
Say hey hey...
While cleaning and packing today, I found the disk of 2004 camp pictures and loaded them onto my computer. I just took a few minutes to look at them again, and I'd forgotten just how much fun that summer was. Yes, the summer had its disasters and its crazy-making parts - for instance, camp pictures should by all rights exclude scenes of me sitting at my computer working in the office. But 2004, especially for Core Camp, we had the best camp staff I've ever ever worked with, and there was no way it was not going to be fun. You could make a lot of camp brochures with happy and capable-looking staff out of the pictures from that summer. I know I'm doing what I need to do for this summer, but I suspect it won't include hysterical scenes of the staff trying to relearn handstands or make marshmallow taffy with our hands or form a crew of Cereal Pirates. I miss my traveling circus!!!
Green trees around us
Blue skies above
Friends all around us
In a world filled with love
Taps sounding softly
Hearts beating true
As we all say
Goodnight to you....
Sunday, March 26, 2006
And now, a musical interlude:
On the fourth Lenten Sunday, my task list showed to me:
12 dirty dishes
11 loads of laundry
10 sources to find
9 verses to translate
8 preaching chapters
7 emails to send
6 trash runs
5 foods to buy
4 history readings
3 rooms to clean
2 beds to make
and an essay to outline and write!
(N.B.: I do not actually live in the kind of filth and squalor this list implies. A visit from Mom at the beginning of spring = spring cleaning. If it was washable, it got washed today. Which is not to say I did the rest of the list - more like half. 11 loads of laundry, it turns out, takes a while, even with three washers and dryers.)
12 dirty dishes
11 loads of laundry
10 sources to find
9 verses to translate
8 preaching chapters
7 emails to send
6 trash runs
5 foods to buy
4 history readings
3 rooms to clean
2 beds to make
and an essay to outline and write!
(N.B.: I do not actually live in the kind of filth and squalor this list implies. A visit from Mom at the beginning of spring = spring cleaning. If it was washable, it got washed today. Which is not to say I did the rest of the list - more like half. 11 loads of laundry, it turns out, takes a while, even with three washers and dryers.)
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